Wednesday 6 May 2009 13.47 EDT
First published on Wednesday 6 May 2009 13.47 EDT

It was an affair that shocked the whole of America. When a tabloid paper forced the presidential candidate John Edwards to admit he was being unfaithful while his wife was being treated for cancer it shattered his image as the family man of US politics.

Now, one year later, Elizabeth Edwards will appear on Oprah Winfrey tomorrow to talk about the scandal and her new book, Resilience: Reflections on the Burdens and Gifts of Facing Life's Adversities.

In the book, Edwards reveals how she felt when the wealthy trial lawyer-turned-senator confessed his infidelity to her soon after announcing he would battle Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama for the Democratic presidential nomination.

"After I cried and screamed," she writes of the December 2006 conversation. "I went to the bathroom and threw up."

Edwards suffered a relapse of breast cancer early in the campaign but famously encouraged her husband to press forward with his quest. But after learning of the affair she initially wanted him to withdraw.

"I wanted him to drop out of the race, protect our family from this woman, from his act," she wrote. "It would only raise questions, he said, he had just gotten in the race ... And I knew that was right, but I was afraid of her."

Winfrey interviewed Elizabeth Edwards at the family's North Carolina home, which she still shares with her husband.

In her interview with Winfrey, Edwards describes how her husband met the woman he had an affair with, videographer Rielle Hunter. "What John had said is that this woman spotted him in the hotel in which he was staying," she said. "She had verified with someone who John worked with that it was John. He had gone to dinner at a nearby restaurant, then he had walked back to the hotel. And when he walked back she was standing in front of the hotel and said to him, 'You are so hot'."

Hunter has a young child, and it has been suggested John Edwards is the father.

"I've seen a picture of the baby," Edwards told Winfrey. "I have no idea. It doesn't look like my children, but I don't have any idea."

The infidelity landed John Edwards in hot water not only with his wife, but with the authorities, who are currently investigating whether he funnelled campaign cash to the woman.

This week, he acknowledged that federal investigators are scrutinising $114,000 his political committee paid to Hunter for videos she shot of him as he travelled the country in 2006 promoting his anti-poverty work.